Kevin Spacey on House of Cards Director David Fincher: “He’s Fucking Obsessed with This Series”

Kevin Spacey on House of Cards Director David Fincher: “He’s Fucking Obsessed with This Series”

David Fincher and Kevin Spacey.

Photo: By Marion Curtis/StarPix.

Rooney Mara.

Photo: By JIMI CELESTE/patrickmcmullan.com.

Michael Kelly.

Photo: By JIMI CELESTE/patrickmcmullan.com.

Constance Zimmer.

Photo: By JIMI CELESTE/patrickmcmullan.com.

Kevin Spacey and Kim Cattrall.

Photo: By Marion Curtis/StarPix.

Kate Mara and Ari Graynor.

Photo: By Marion Curtis/StarPix.

Kristen Connolly and Victor Garber.

Photo: By Marion Curtis/StarPix.

David Fincher and Kevin Spacey.

By Marion Curtis/StarPix.

Rooney Mara.

By JIMI CELESTE/patrickmcmullan.com.

Michael Kelly.

By JIMI CELESTE/patrickmcmullan.com.

Constance Zimmer.

By JIMI CELESTE/patrickmcmullan.com.

Kevin Spacey and Kim Cattrall.

By Marion Curtis/StarPix.

Kate Mara and Ari Graynor.

By Marion Curtis/StarPix.

Kristen Connolly and Victor Garber.

By Marion Curtis/StarPix.

Kevin Spacey says that making his new series, House of Cards, has been one of the most satisfying experiences he’s ever had. “I’m the luckiest motherfucker from New Jersey you’ve ever met,” Spacey said at the premiere at Lincoln Center on Wednesday. Making the show with David Fincher, Spacey said, was a remarkable experience. “When he becomes obsessed with something—and believe me, he’s fucking obsessed with this series—it’s a really good thing,” Spacey added.

The show, a political drama, is Netflix’s first-ever original scripted series, and the download service went prestige, laying out big money, committing to a full two seasons, and teaming with Fincher and Spacey.

“I had never worked in television before. Neither had David Fincher or Kevin Spacey,” showrunner Beau Willimon told VF Daily. “But I do know that having 26 episodes guaranteed upfront, two seasons, liberated me as a writer, because my staff and I could really look at the story over a 26-hour arc, so we could do things early in Season One that could pay off late in Season Two. You don’t have that luxury with shows where you don’t have as many episodes committed.”

The cast includes a number of experienced actors, including Robin Wright, Constance Zimmer, Sandrine Holt, Corey Stoll, and Kate Mara, who plays an ambitious political reporter at a D.C. newspaper. In real life, she doesn’t follow politics. “You know, I think I would be horrible in that world,” Mara said, laughing.

The same goes for Michael Kelly, who plays a maneuvering aide-de-camp to Spacey’s House majority whip. “I have way too shady a background to get into politics,” Kelly said. “I was a crazy kid—I was in bands, and I don’t think I’d get very far before people started digging up stuff I didn’t want them to see,” he told VF Daily.

House of Cards was shot in Baltimore, and Kelly also appears on the series Person of Interest, which films in New York, so he had to juggle between the two. “I drove 95 this summer a lot,” he said, laughing. “And I have a six-month-old that was born during shooting. My wife was pregnant when we started.”

Netflix also did up the premiere in a big way—an enormous party followed the Alice Tully Hall screening, with Harvey Weinstein, Rooney Mara, Carla Gugino, Soledad O’Brien, David Cross and Amber Tamblyn, Ben Foster, Ari Graynor, and Kim Cattrall mingling and munching on Southern fare.